Coastlines the frontline with warming

English town erodes
Like the peninsula of Cape Cod, Mass., the eastern English county of Norwich — where Happisburgh is located — has suffered coastal erosion for years.

Since 1990, when Happisburgh's offshore wooden barrier began to break apart, exposing its soft cliffs to the pounding surf of the North Sea, about 25 bungalows have been lost to erosion in the picturesque village of Edwardian homes that is home to 850 people.

A garage, several bungalows and a small road that once separated Cliff House from the North Sea are gone. The guest house now sits about 15 feet from the edge of the crumbling cliff and no longer accepts visitors.

Wrightson and her partner are moving their possessions to a home they have rented further inland, knowing they won't be able to stay much longer. When Cliff House goes, they will not receive compensation from the government or their insurance company, one of many that does not cover claims involving coastal erosion.

Late last year, a new law went into effect in England and Wales under which the government decides whether it makes sense, economically and environmentally, to rebuild such barriers in threatened coastal areas. For Happisburgh, the answer was no.

Building barriers
As predictions about global warming worsen, countries such as Britain and the Netherlands are preparing for the worst by taking steps such as improving a barrier that prevents the River Thames from flooding landmarks such as Big Ben and Parliament, building amphibious homes in low-lying areas, reworking shoreline management plans, and updating flood evacuation plans.

In Italy, a $5.5 billion plan to build moveable flood barriers in an effort to save Venice from higher tides has been approved by state and local officials.

Venice is threatened by water on several fronts. The city is sinking while the level of the Adriatic sea is rising and higher tides are becoming more frequent, flooding into St. Mark's Square and prompting officials to set up raised plank walkways.

The decades-old debate on how to save Venice from water resulted in the approval in 2003 of the proposal to build flood barriers to ease the effect of higher tides. Dubbed "Moses," after the Biblical figure who parted the Red Sea, the project calls for hinged barriers to be built in the seabed just off Venice. The barriers could be raised when high tides threaten the city.

In the Netherlands, the construction company Dura Vermeer has built 32 amphibious houses, which sit on dry land but rise on flood waters and 14 "floating homes," which are full-sized houses built on the river — like large, stationary houseboats. The project at Maasbommel was completed last year and all homes have been sold.

Lefteris Pitarakis / AP A man in Happisburgh, England, walks over debris from previous barriers and collapsed contruction destroyed by erosion.

The company said it is in discussions now to build a similar-sized project in the southeastern province of Limburg.

The Dutch history of adapting to their soggy surroundings goes back at least 700 years with its massive network of dikes to hold back the North Sea and windmills to pump out water to reclaim swampy land.

After a devastating 1953 flood that killed 1,835 people, Holland launched the Delta Project, which took 50 years to complete. One of the world's largest engineering projects, it is comprised of storm surge barriers, giant sluices and dams. Its centerpiece is a chain of 40-feet-tall steel walls suspended by piers in the open sea that can be lowered into place to create a bulwark against storms.

But in recent years, the theory of disaster control has shifted from blocking flood waters to managing them. It involves selectively breaching the dikes at key pressure points to ease the destructive force and allow the water to flood unpopulated areas.

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